Sebastian Vettel said "it was very emotional" when he secured his 15th pole position of the season at the Brazilian Grand Prix to set a new record for the number of poles in a season.

Vettel was level with Nigel Mansell going in to the final qualifying of the season, and with a well-known eye for statistics he was keen to set a new record of his own. He said that it was something he had tried not to think about during the session, but that once he had completed his flying lap his attentions immediately turned to the whether he had beaten the record. When asked to sum up his feelings Vettel replied: "It's difficult.

"There has been quite some talk before the qualifying, before this weekend, about this particular record and I think the best thing was just not to think about it at all. Yesterday we did have sort of a rough start to the weekend where I wasn't 100% happy with the balance yet but then I think we made the right choices overnight and again going in to qualifying.

"I was happier and enjoying the moment, enjoying the laps I had; I was already happy with the first one in Q3 but knew that there was a bit more to come and put everything in to the last lap. It was very emotional when I crossed the line because I knew that whatever happens that was all I had and I gave it all so I was very pleased with that.

"But then I had to wait for quite a long time to see whether my time was good enough or not. The names kept popping, my engineer Rocky told me: 'Jenson [Button] P2, Mark [Webber] P2' and then 'pole position'. So it's really special. Different from the other poles I would say. Obviously it took the master in that discipline - Nigel Mansell - a couple of races less, but still very historical and very special to me."

Looking ahead to the race itself, Vettel said that the weather was still going to be an unknown and would make the race "tricky".

"Now I'm just happy to be here and happy to start from the front tomorrow and hopefully enjoy the race. So I'm looking forward. The weather's going to be a big question mark; we knew that going in to the weekend. To be honest it has improved, today it was already supposed to be wet - it was dry - so I think this place is a little bit tricky anyway; special races, special weather, we've seen that the last couple of years so I'm looking forward to tomorrow."